The holidays are supposed to be a season of peace, but for many families they are the most stressful weeks of the year. Schedules collide, old tensions resurface, and the relative who always causes a problem is about to walk through the front door.
Peace in the home does not happen by accident. Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the peacekeepers.” He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Making peace takes effort. Scripture tells us to “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14) and to “strive to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:11).
So how do you pursue it? One of the most unexpected places to look is Leviticus 14.
A Strange Passage About Houses
Leviticus 14:33-45 gives instructions for what Israel should do when a “case of leprous disease” appears in the walls of a house in the Promised Land. The homeowner reports it to the priest. The priest examines it. If the disease has spread, the affected stones are removed and the walls scraped and replastered. And if it keeps coming back, it is “a persistent leprous disease” (Leviticus 14:44), and the house must come down.
It is an odd text for a sermon on family. But in a message at Citylight Church, Pastor Jason Mayfield drew from it a four-step framework for keeping peace in the home. Not everyone will need every step. But every step has its place.
Step 1: Inspect the Irritation
The process begins when the owner says, “There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house” (Leviticus 14:35).
You do not have to go looking for problems. If they are there, they will show up. But when something feels off, you have to stop and examine it.
Some disruptions are obvious. If sewage is backing up into the bathtub, you know exactly why you are upset. If this is the first Thanksgiving since losing a spouse, everyone understands why the season is hard.
Other disruptions are slow and quiet, like a toilet that runs a little too long. It wears on you for months before you connect it to why you are on edge. If you have left three family dinners in a row feeling terrible and cannot say why, it is time to ask some questions. Something is going on.
Step 2: Evaluate the Environment
The priest looks to see whether the disease “appears to be deeper than the surface” (Leviticus 14:37). That implies some problems are on the surface. It might not be leprosy in the wall. It might just be spaghetti sauce.
Either way you have to deal with it, but surface problems are easy to reach. Common peace disruptors in the home include:
- clashing schedules;
- the daily question of what is for dinner;
- clutter and disorganization;
- screens and late nights;
- even the temperature of the house.
Sometimes the fix is as simple as moving the television to a different wall so it stops broadcasting noise across the main path through the house. These things can be solved with relative ease when you name them, talk openly, manage your expectations, and adapt where necessary.
One more help: do not merge incompatible environments. Give yourself a little decompression time between work and home, so the things you cannot control at work do not take over the place you can.
Step 3: Contain the Contagion
When the disease goes deeper, the priest commands “that they take out the stones in which is the disease” (Leviticus 14:40). One bad stone can affect the whole house.
Many family problems are like this. “Our marriage isn’t working” may really be a communication problem. “I’m a terrible parent” may really be a need for more patience. “We’re running out of money” may be one debt that is pressing on everything else. Most isolated issues can be solved with communication and boundaries.
Walls build a house, but boundaries build a home. Boundaries are lines we neither cross nor allow to be crossed.
Sometimes the boundary goes around a thing: words that are never used in your home, or topics that will only start a fight. You are not going to change how your relatives vote. Build a boundary around it and find something you can agree on.
Sometimes the boundary goes around a place. When Jesus’ mother and brothers came looking for Him in the middle of His ministry, He answered, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (Matthew 12:48). There are conversations that belong at home and not in public. And at the holidays, it is fine to tell family, kindly and plainly, that some things that are fine in their house will not happen in yours.
People rarely resent clear boundaries. Most appreciate knowing where you stand. Clarity is a kindness.
Step 4: Terminate the Terminal
Finally, there is the persistent disease that will not go away. For that house, the instruction is to “break down the house, its stones and timber and all the plaster” (Leviticus 14:45).
This is the hardest step, and it is not for everyone. But it is not honest to tell every hurting person only to wait for breakthrough. God rebuked the prophets of Jeremiah’s day who “have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14).
Some relationships need strict boundaries. Others need to be ended. A useful test: it should not take a full day to recover from a half-hour phone call. When a relationship keeps costing the peace of your spouse and children, and there is no sign it will ever change, it may be time to step away.
That is especially hard in a culture that says “blood is thicker than water.” But Scripture says, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife” (Genesis 2:24). Your first loyalty is to the home God has given you. You do not owe every part of yourself to everybody.
If you are weighing a decision like this, talk it through with a trusted counselor first. Many who have taken this step say the same thing afterward: they wish they had done it sooner.
When You Cannot Change Your Situation
Not everyone can change where they live or who they live with. Young people especially may be in homes they cannot leave. If that is you, and your home is unsafe, tell a trusted adult or your church. You do not have to carry it alone.
God’s promise to you is real. Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to take away his struggle, and the Lord answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Even in a home that is falling apart, you can know “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Your circumstances can be getting worse while you are getting better.
You may not see it this year, or for years to come. But God finishes what He starts. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). The God who promised that “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Haggai 2:9) can build something in your home that is better than the house you grew up in.
He is the God of joy, the God of hope, and the God of peace.